With a loud 'Halloo!' coming from the far end of the Portakabin, you knew when Brian Blessed was in. This was during the summer of 1979, when I was sewing for Flash Gordon at Shepperton Studios. Burnt out after working night and day making tutus and sylphides (sylph-eeds) for Jean Lamprell in Covent Garden, I had left and almost - almost - taken a 9 to 5 job in Accounts for the Rotary Society.

The cliff-edge to ordinariness had not been reached by a narrow margine. It was only on my way out after a successful interview that I had seen the girls I would actually work with in Accounts, where an accusing look had been thrown in my direction which said: 'Who do you think you are?' "A theatrical costumier..." my mind gulped back, and so I had backed out of it.

And somehow, here I was, Working In Films, working for Dino de Laurentis. This turned out to be the exact opposite of working for Jean Lamprell. For a start, there was nothing to do. Four machinists (myself among them) marked time by sewing together three metre-square pieces of heavy-duty backing scrim. Day after day. Soulless activity, but at twice the money I had been getting before, I did not mind so much. I was sorry the Italians in charge of the department could not speak English, so I could not tell them I was used to making six historical costumes all at the same time, nor, due to the lack of work, could I prove my worth.

Every so often a short stubby man would appear at the near end of the Portacabin for a discussion with those Italians in charge; ribbons of Italian would flow across the room, accompanied by wild gesticulations. Then short stubby would storm out. It turned out short stubby was the main designer; the Italians in charge were asking him for costume designs - which he had no intention of doing yet as he was designing the sets.

This, the Italian, method of making films was to allow it to evolve. Not, as you might think, to plan well in advance. During our lunch breaks, freed from the druggery of sewing scrim, there were pleasures to be had as we wandered about the studios and saw the sets being built. In the special effects studios we saw the immaculate details of the model landscape - a train-set enthusiast's dream - which was to be used for the crash scene at the beginning.

The staff canteen was interesting: extras from another film came in wearing full Victorian costume to line up for sausage and chips. They were the snootiest people on the lot. I was told that extras always are - something to do with still needing to prove themselves.

The voice of experience said that that nicest people were those at the top: "Margot Fonteyn? an absolute sweetie darling, you'd never meet anyone nicer". I don't know if this is always true; but having seen a few actors arrive for fittings - hmmm... Back at Jean Lamprell'swe knew Christopher Lee was a sweetie, but... where is Oliver Tobias now? He co-starred with Lee in 'Arabian Adventure' (1979), but had inconsiderately turned up for a fitting not wearing any underwear. He could have asked the limo driver to stop off at M&S to buy some. He was not a sweetie.

Brian Blessed though, he was a sweetie, a really lovely man who had a huge generosity of spirit. He turned up to be fitted for not very much. A week or so after I had started at Shepperton a slight man had arrived at the opposite end of the portacabin from the Italians in Charge. There he had proceeded to set up his gadgets and go about his business without any fuss whatsoever, using hissing steam to shape felt into all sorts of headwear, and make leather into all sorts of other necessary, yet flimsy items.

I mean, they seemed to be made of nothing much, yet Brian needed fittings in order to wear them. To compound my incredulity that this artistry was happening, seemingly all by itself, the hatter - for so he must have been - told me he left his home to come out to Shepperton every morning at 5 am. Leaving home at this jaw-droppingly early hour he did not mind at all.

And Brian did look good in the creations made for him. It seemed as if London had a lot of talent in making costumes.

Slowly costumes designs arrived, and with them arrived more people to sew them. I still had very little to do! Sue, an underwear expert arrived. She was blond and tubby, the proud owner of a Ford Capri. In the end her expertise was much needed, as there was a lot of 'underwear' to be made. In the happy-go-lucky way of Italian film making, they made underwear for one Dale (Flash Gordon's girl), then changed their minds and brought in another. I'm not even sure that they didn't change Flash himself.

There certainly were a lot of changes. Instead of a 'U' certificate, the film was to be an 'X' certificate. This required the underwear to be more revealing. But that was not a good idea for audience sales was it? Realising their mistake, the Italians changed their mind yet again: it would be a 'PG'. So new underwear had to be made yet again.

I am not sure what I did sew in the end. It seemed to be an interminable wait for instructions. As the months went on I came to be known as the little earth mother, as I was expecting my first baby. Somehow in honour of this we used some scraps of red fur from the giant costumes to make teddy bears. I remember the actors moaning about the heat and the weight of the giant costumes, which we could not do much about.

One afternoon I thought it would be interesting to watch some the filming, to see some of the action. But it wasn't. Interesting. A small army of people stood around with plenty of equipment seemingly doing nothing, waiting for something to happen. This went on for some time.

So now you know what it is like to do filming, let me take you from Shepperton Studios in 1979 to Elstree in 1981 or so; from Flash Gordon to Star Wars via Brian Blessed, who remembers Sebastian Shaw with much fondness: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5x-ZQVOEeXM

Born on the same day as Carrie Fisher, Isobel Montgomery Campbell considers her parallel life.

It must have been in 1978 that Richard and I came out of the Putney Gaumont with our heads reeling. We had finally been to see Star Wars, and it was just as everyone had said –there was nothing else like it. The speed of the action was breath-taking, the realism of the world Lucas had created was entirely convincing, we had been propelled into a different universe.

And in amongst it all, I was relieved to find that in this different universe, the Girl was good. I approved of her. Up until then, let us remember, the girl in action films was usually some helpless sex symbol, handicapped by high heels or tight clothing – but this one was an equal member of the gang. On the whole her clothes were practical, and instead of high heels she wore action boots. And this was important, because Star Wars was –and possibly still is– the biggest film ever made. Which meant that the equality of the sexes it portrayed was equally ground-breaking. And part of that equality was portrayed in the humour. The girl’s feisty repartee showed she was relaxed and on top of her game, even when stuck in a garbage masher.

Then at some point I chanced upon Carrie’s date of birth in a magazine, which I was intrigued to find was the same as mine.

Now I’m not one to believe in astrology, but there are a few similarities between us.The first one: when Carrie talked on the The Ellen DeGeneres Show about her face having big round cheeks, I immediately identify with that. My father had laughingly said I had a round face, just like an apple. I hated my cheeks! Which contributed to a deep sense of self-loathing Carrie seemed to have too. It took me many years to stop believing this – I was fortunate to have a husband who kept telling me I was beautiful. But really it was only when Catherine Zeta Jones came along with the same face that I believed him.

Where do we look for a sense of self-worth? Far too often it is in the images that surround us. I now believe that it is what is in your head, not what is on it, that makes you beautiful.

Sebastian, writing about seeing Dame Edith Evans act for the first time says “I was convinced that I had seen not only a great comedy actress, but a dazzlingly beautiful woman. I never wavered in the first of these convictions, but not even her greatest admirers would claim she was beautiful. The fact is, in face and figure, she was what the Americans would call homely. A great actress has the skill –the genius– to present herself as she wants the audience to see her.”

Isn’t that the secret –the same old same old: your beauty comes from within.

Now my cousins say to me: “I have those cheek-bones!” the very ones I was so ashamed of in my youth. Yet when Sebastian had them, they were so handsome.

It is rewarding to know where Shaw Press books are being read. One of the readers of Memoirs and Recollections is Alan de Quincey, who happens to be English, but lives with his French wife, Marie Francoise, in a medieval village built on a hill in the Languedoc region of Southern France.

An ascetic by nature, whilst many of his generation explored free love and drugs, Alan chose the opposite path, and went to live as a Greek Orthodox hermit in a cave in the French Alps. (Attending a Steiner school put him off anything less rigorous; nor, I suspect, anything so recent as neo-paganism.) His ideas mellowed over time; he met Marie Francoise, a woman with a petite, bird-like beauty; married and settled down. They are now curators for the archeolgical site of Cambous, one of the oldest villages in France, dating from Neolithic times, when a matriarchal society worshipped the White Goddess.

Life as a hermit has left him knowing about the land, its history and spiritual significance. He is also incredibly knowledgeable about the past, and in many ways stil lives in it. Alan has a way of talking about the simplest of things with a deep sense of wonder. Every action he makes has a sense of the sacred about it.

The de Quincey home is full of precious things: history books, art books, pictures, antiques. There is nothing in their home that I would consider worthless. Every photo on the wall is aesthetically pleasing. The walls themselves are so old they are aesthetically pleasing. Even the loose wires hanging from the ceiling add to the charm. It is still, in some ways, a troglodyte dwelling: the lower floor cut out of the rock, the back door (now the only entrance in use) reached by a steep alleyway called Rue Obscure.

From this small doorway, decorated by creepers, you step down into a narrow, dark corridor, filled with books and papers, and make your way into the small kitchen, still more or less in its medieval state.

Marie Francoise cooks, either over a Cinderella-style cast iron range with an open fire or, in the summer months, a single gas hob – the gas canister underneath hidden by a huge chopping board hung on a hook. A small room leads off the kitchen: the washroom, its stone sink still in use, though at least there is one modern convenience: a tap. Herbs hang from the ceiling, and on the day I visit, soon Marie Francoise is using a pestle and mortar to grinding basil, oil and garlic, vital ingrediants for soupe a pistou. (Pesto and pistou have the same etymological root).

What with the wood for the fire, boxes of paper bags for starting a fire, cubby-holes in the walls filled with boxes of useful ingredients, a crowded dresser, there doesn't seem to be room for anything else here. But there is. A dog, the size and colour of a small bear, finds his place by his bowl. Either that, or he can go under the dining table, now crowded with crockery, cutlery and other things we might need for our meal.

Cats decorate the house, elegantly extending a leg to wash themselves, or stare from a chair you might want to sit on. Into this mix add two Chihuahuas, temporary guests while their mistress is on holiday.

I have a theory that your home is the outward manifestation of your brain. It is obvious really, but some suitably qualified person needs to write a book on the topic before I can use a quote to prove my point. My observation is that the more knowledgeable a person, the more crowded their house. This is not to be confused with disorganized mess – but it is a reflection of the person’s level of knowledge. Because, in the main, to own something is to know about it.

Upstairs, at the top of the house, hung in the grénier, are Alan's robes, used when he is officiating at the small Coptic Orthodox church he and Marie Francoise attend. Services are held beneath stone vaulted ceilings, the air heavy with incense. They perform a ceremony dating back to the days before Rome, when Christianity was based in Alexandria. Merlin would have approved of this I think, could have chatted with Alan about the way Romans built bridges and dams; the way to build a tomb facing a particular direction to line up with the equinox, facing a particular sacred mountain, the way our Neolithic ancestors did. Alan knows all these things.

Back in the de Quincey kitchen, he tells me how much he is enjoying reading Sebastian's memoirs. Particularly the bit about Percy Dearmer, the reforming vicar of Primrose Hill. He is amazed at Sebastian's knowledge of the Sarum Rite; Alan recites the names of those who walk behind the priest in the procession: the thurifer and taperer; the amices they wear, put on like hoods and then thrown back around their necks (pages 36-7). I am entranced by the romance of it all, and honoured to be the source of this admiration. In fact, what has surprised me is that Alan is the third person who has appreciated this part of the book - one other person was Dearmer's grand-daughter. As I have found myself, being related to someone does not necessarily mean you know everything about them.

After we have eaten the delicious soupe au pistou, a meal in itself, I check out the chihuahuas. They have been given their own domain in the sitting room, a room equally full of interesting things. In amonst these lies Alan's copy of Sebastian's memoirs, next to the single armchair. This is where Alan likes to sit and read, next to the French windows leading out to a balcony, a view of the Cévennes far away in the distance. And with the chihuahuas gently settled on his lap.

Well, it's three years to the day since I first set eyes on the manuscript of Sebastian's memoirs, visiting his nephew Geoffrey. I was intrigued to hear that they existed at all, as I was curious about my famous actor cousin. I took the fat wad of paper home, and next day began to read them.

Pretty soon that soft 'on edge' feeling I have when looking over unpublished work (usually unpublished poetry) disappeared, and I could relax and enjoy the tale! This is the sign of good art: when the thing stands alone and it doesn't matter who made it. Poem, photo, book, sculpture - the thing must be worth more than person who made it. There was no coy "Aw, these memoirs are by my cousin-who-was-in-Star-Wars, let's publish them!" sort of thing - Goodness, spare me from gooey sentiment like that! The problem was, though, that the manuscript (this one at least) ended with the first air raid of World War 2. Expressing my disappointment to Geoffrey, he said he did think he had something else. The something else turned out to be an untyped manuscript, in Sebastian's own shaky handwriting. This led up to 1943 or so. Another treasure, but not The Main Thing.

However, I had the idea that we could complete Sebastian's life story from the other direction as it were, and I wrote off to people I know he knew to ask for their own memories of him. Very quickly Sir Ben Kingsley responded. I am truely touched by this, and SBK has been very supportive - turns out he and Sebastian were good friends back in the day.

Slowly more and more people came forward with their memories of Sebastian, and his greatest fan, Susanna Kolar got in touch. Her research into Sebastian over the last 20 years laid the foundation for The List of Appearances. And I located Sebastian's own memory of being Darth/Anakin, taken from an interview published in the now defunct 'Starlog Magazine'. The project was a go-er!

Now it is a beautiful book for you to enjoy: lots of behind the scenes as readers meet a grumpy WH Auden, Sebastian as a smooth Othello, a wistful hero, beautiful young man.

And I hope you do, or have, enjoyed it. At least his record is 'out there' now. Any time anyone posts a comment on a Star Wars fan site, the proof of his suitability - and why he was chosen for the role - is now in the public domain. He led an interesting life, not one I entirely agree with to be honest, but we are all the richer for having met him. As it happens he really was - for me and for many others - a father for those of us who needed one.

"You haven't bought a Granny-trolley have you!!" shouts my dear darling daughter (DDD) from downstairs. (When did we stop entering a room to talk to people? Why are conversations shouted round the house these days?)

"Arrgh! – It's so emBarrassING!"

Fact is she missed the purchase, having been in the land of Oz visiting my son and his family when it happened. And as it happens, I've been a granny for five years now, since which time I have aquired, in true red-riding-hood style, a four-poster bed, reading glasses, and a love of afternoon naps.

And now this. The reason I have aquired - to give it its proper name - a shopping trolley is for several reasons:

One: I have a slightly loopy neighbour who always catches me when I'm coming home carrying heavy shopping and wants to chat. He has - as these people do - a way of Telling a Story, in such a way that you can't escape. He spots me from afar, crosses the road and - he's off! Or rather, I'm not, not for ten minutes at least. The cost of being polite, despite the pain of holding the shopping. He hails from Birmingham, a place I have long observed to be the original source of the term 'Moaning Pommie'. You can take from that the tone of the conversation.

Two: I am always walking home with said heavy shopping. London was built before the advent of cars, and it is just easier to walk to the shops than squirrel about driving along narrow streets only to find you can't park at the end of your journey.

Three: this is particularly applicable because I cannot park outside the Post Office. I am now going there a lot. I did try to walk to the Post Office carrying five books ready to post, and dropped one in the process. It survived fine, but I'd rather avoid the experience. Using a shopping trolley is just more efficient.

Four - especially Four: I cannot drive into Central London. It is with this in mind that I defend my purchase to DDD. "I need it!" I protest (note: this is once I am in the same room as her, viz. the kitchen), "I had to make a delivery! - I had to go to Covent Garden for a delivery to Forbidden Planet!"

Despite this being a very un-Granny destination, DDD is not impressed. "It still makes you look like a granny" she insists.

I think. Then realize something: the moment I had got on the tube en-route to Covent Garden, a good-looking young man, who seemed to be deeply in love with the woman sitting next to him, had stood up to give me his seat. He must have seen the shopping trolley and thought I was In Need. I had declined profusely. I admit this to her. "Exactly!" says DDD in triumph.

But still, I had been to Forbidden Planet.

Sian at Forbidden Planet's London Megastore taking delivery of Sebastian's Memoirs ready for sale on 21st of October.

A business is only as good as its delivery. No matter how good the product, how strategic the marketing, all is as dust if you, dear buyer, cannot have that desired purchase in your hands. 'Fulfillment' is the technical word for this; it has become my new ‘F’ word.

Now I know, being the age I am, that not everyone on this planet lives in London, much as it may seem. I know, after watching the Olympics, that people can live in Vanuatu, or Fiji, or Uzbekistan – or Brazil. And most of all I know that people live (dear friends, I love you all!) in the US. And I know that in all these far flung places, there will be a Star Wars fan, someone who no doubt has a Storm-trooper mug – and only ever drinks coffee from that mug.

Myself, being a bright, fresh publisher, I do not want to disappoint a reader. I want them, on receiving their small packet, to be fulfilled, for them to say, from Maida Vale to the Maldives, from Hammersmith to Hamburg: "It is a fantastic feeling to hold the book in my hands!"

And you would have thought, really, that arranging this would be easy. But as I sally forth to arrange it, I immediately slam in to Other People’s Systems. In my case, the system provided by Square Space, combined with the system provided by Royal Mail.

Well, not being the sort of person who thinks (as some do) that the detail of their car service history is a valid topic of conversation, I won’t bore you with minutiae, but visits to the local Post Office are required. I spend time lathering about with all the options: one book? two books? To go to the UK; Every Single Country in Europe; every Continent on Earth. Shipped, Freight or Tracked – and then, what about Signed For? I wrestle with Choice for days.

In the end I come up with a simple solution - Oh why didn't I think of this before? - charge the same as Waterstones.

Well, here I am paddling my own canoe in the book-publishing world, and somewhere along the flow of waters I find I'm up the creek with Amazon.

Amazon - I use it all the time! even though there is some guilt attached when I do, as cheap prices mean cheap wages.

Now I find this cheap pricing affects me. Should I list my book with Amazon? Turns out if I do, they decide how much they'll pay me for it. And having worked out their ratio, I can see that that is not a price that covers my costs.

But, heaving a sigh, I decide to continue paddling. I'll go with Amazon. I start to fill in their online form. On page one I make a bad decision: I say I am a Business (as I am to the Tax Man). Next thing I know, Amazon want to know how many staff do I employ? How many hundreds of books do I sell a month? This is not where I want to be. Zero and zero at the moment. I start back paddling: Back Back. Back Back. No good, the page just keeps reloading, missing the page where I made the bad decision, insisting that I must be a business and that I must tell them all my businessy stuff.

I heave another sigh. Okay, I'll be a business. I'll go and find my Unique Tax Reference. I'll Go And Search for It, just to please you, Amazon. I find it. I'll fill that box with my UTR numbers. But Amazon, or whatever is Amazon, won't have it. Nasty red rejecty 'not verified' words appear next to the numbers.

I ask for help. I am variously helped ('Greetings from Amazon!') by Julian, Althea and others whose writing style makes me suspicious. I think they are robots. The commune with each other and tell me to contact 'seller-verification'. I contact Seller Verification. They reply that they understand my problem, but in order to resolve it, I need to contact 'seller-verification'. I continue on this loop for a Whole Day.

I am surely up the creek with Amazon. I decide to do without it. I pick up my canoe and head off into the jungle of Selling the Book on my Own.

Which is why you will not find Sebastian Shaw, Memoirs and Recollections, available on Amazon.